Tonight is the White House Correspondent's Dinner, an annual event where members of the White House Press Corps, the current White House administration and various hangers-on and celebrities get together and try to pretend they're not nearly as chummy as they are in real life.
Generally, the current president shows up to tell some extremely mild jokes and there is also a guest comedian who comes in to take some gentle jabs at the powerful people in the room. Most years, the only real news that comes out of the event is if the comic is perceived as being too mean or if some pundit mistakes a Presidential joke as some expression of a change in policy.
But if there was one recent WHCD that might have helped changed history, it was the one that took place in 2011. Barack Obama was president and among the guests at the dinner was Donald Trump. In the weeks leading up to the dinner, Trump had been practically living on the Fox News Channel, demanding that President Obama release his complete long-form birth certificate.
And it wasn't just the birth certificate. Trump claimed he had dispatched a team of "top investigators" to Hawaii in order to uncover the truth. And in his always subtle way, he also implied that Obama's college transcripts might have been altered, and/or that his accomplishments were somehow the result of affirmative action gone wrong. He suggested in numerous interviews that he was considering a run for president against Obama in 2012 and I think it's fair to say there was no love lost between the two.
Trump and wife Melania were at the dinner that night as guests of The Washington Post and in a weird moment of synergy, the state of Hawaii had released Obama's long-form birth certificate just days before the dinner. And as you might imagine, that made for some interesting moments in the event.
As Trump sat stone-faced in the audience, President Obama's speech opened with a video that combined rock music with clips of patriotic American landmarks and shots of his birth certificate. When he began his speech, he announced that he was also prepared to release a video of his birth, which should end all questions about where he was born. He then showed a clip from the Disney film The Lion King.
Obama took a number of shots at Trump during his speech, but things only escalated when guest comedian Seth Meyers took to the podium. After complaining to Obama that releasing his birth certificate meant that Meyers now had to throw out a bunch of previously written jokes, Meyers proceeded to work his way through the various media outlets in attendance, as well as some of the celebrities in the crowd:
"Jon Hamm looks like way every Republican thinks they looks."
Meyers then turned his attention to Trump, whom he whacked on like he was a pinata:
"Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican — which is surprising, since I just assumed that he was running as a joke.”
"Donald Trump often appears on Fox. Which is ironic, because a Fox often appears on Donald Trump's head."
"Gary Busey recently said he thought Donald Trump would make a great president. Of course, he also said that about an old rusty bird cage he found."
“Donald Trump owns the Miss USA pageant, which is great for Republicans because it will streamline their search for a vice president.”
“Donald Trump said recently he’s got a great relationship with ‘the blacks.’ Unless the Blacks are a family of white people, I bet he’s mistaken.”
After nearly every joke, the C-SPAN first cut to grim-looking Trump sitting in a sea of laughing faces. Then to the podium, where then President Obama was laughing deeply at nearly every jab.
Trump quickly left the dinner without speaking to the press but in an interview several days later with the NY Times, he claimed he wasn't bothered by the public mocking:
“Seth Meyers has no talent,” Mr. Trump said in an interview on Sunday. “He fell totally flat. In fact, I thought Seth’s delivery was so bad that he hurt himself.”
Mr. Trump, who appeared unsmiling throughout most of the annual dinner on Saturday night, acknowledged his occasional discomfort (“I am not looking to laugh along with my enemies”) but said he viewed the rough treatment as a measure of the fear he had struck in the Washington establishment. “It was like a roast of Donald Trump,” he said, clearly reveling in the attention, if not the content.
And yet, when you look back through the prism of 2024, that moment seems to be the one in which Donald Trump decided that he might really want to be President. And that desire makes sense, based on what we know of Trump's psyche. More than nearly anything else, Donald Trump yearns to be taken seriously. To be seen as a top dog and someone to be feared.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Donald Trump never attended a White House Correspondent's Dinner in the four years when he was president. He might have been the leader of the free world. But he was still a guy who wasn't going to sit in a room while the audience laughed at him.